A blog about software testing.

Testers Who Code Get More Respect

The debate-style “Should Testers Code?” presentation at CAST 2015 was one of the best attended talks of the conference. And with good reason: This question is everywhere. But after more than an hour of Henrik Andersson defending testers who don’t code and Jeff Morgan defending testers who do code, I was convinced. Everyone should stop asking this question.

Testers are constantly asking themselves if the task they’re performing is providing a higher value than some other task. A tester who can code has one more tool in their tool belt to help eliminate bottlenecks along the way. When a tester has the engineering skills to craft an automated suite of checks, they’re often able to provide more value to their team than a tester checking the same boxes manually.

For all these reasons, they make more money.

More interesting work, more respect, and more money: What more do you want?